Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK railway lines)

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This is a standard naming convention for railway lines in the United Kingdom. It is based on existing article titles and dicussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways. Before changing this guideline, please reach consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways. Once this has been agreed on within the UK rail community, it will be presented to the entire trains community as a proposed adoption for global line names.

Summary

The basic conventions for UK railway lines are as follows:

  1. A name based on a single place or concept should be written Foo line (e.g. Cambridge line, Hastings line);
  2. A name is based on two places should be written Foo–Bar line (e.g. Redhill–Tonbridge line, East Kilbride–Glasgow Central line);
  3. A name ending "Main Line" should be entirely capitalised as Foo Main Line (e.g. Great Eastern Main Line, North Wales Main Line);
  4. A name not ending with "line" should follow reliable sources (e.g. High Speed 1, Welsh Highland Railway);
  5. A name ending with a term more specific than "line" should still remain lowercase (e.g. Catford loop line, Greenford branch line);

If almost all sources refer to the line as a proper noun they may be entirely capitalised (e.g. West Highland Line, North Downs Line).

Conventions

1: Single places or concepts

The line through the Hope Valley is the Hope Valley line, not the Hope valley line or Hope Valley Line.

If the name of the line is Foo line where Foo is a single place, area, or concept, the word line should remain uncapitalised. For example, the line between Hitchin and Cambridge is called the Cambridge line, not the Cambridge Line (a redirect). The descriptor itself should be capitalised as appropriate; for example a line on the coast of Foo would be the "Foo coast line" because "Foo coast" is not a place of its own, but if there were a place called the Foo Valley and a line ran through it that would then be the Foo Valley line, not the Foo valley line. An easy way to check this is the Wikipedia article of the subject; Hope Valley is in title case as it is a proper noun, so the line running through it is the Hope Valley line.

2: Two places

The line between Exeter and Plymouth is the Exeter–Plymouth line, not the Exeter–plymouth line or the Exeter–Plymouth Line.

If the name of the line is Foo–Bar line where Foo and Bar are two places, the word line should remain uncapitalised. The two places will likely be capitalised as they are proper nouns. For example, the line between Redhill and Tonbridge is the Redhill–Tonbridge line, not the Redhill–Tonbridge Line (a redirect). The two names should be separated by an en dash (–), not a hyphen (-) or an em dash (—). If either one of the places has more than one word, this does not affect the placement or number of dashes (i.e. it is the East Kilbride–Glasgow Central line not the East-Kilbride–Glasgow-Central line or the East–Kilbride–Glasgow–Central line.

3: Main lines

The main line through the Chiltern Hills is the Chiltern Main Line, not the Chiltern main line.

Anything with the name main line has all capital letters. For example:

This is the only time when the word 'line' is uppercase as a standard. This is because "Main Line" is part of the name, rather than a description of what it is. There are no exceptions to this currently in the project.

4: Irregular names

The line between the Channel Tunnel and London is called High Speed 1, not the High Speed 1 line.

If the normal name for the line does not end in line, use the normal name. Examples of this include:

Do not try force the name in, such as "West London Orbital line" as that is not its name. This also includes heritage railways that operate a single stretch of line; it is the Welsh Highland Railway not the "Welsh Highland Line".

5: Other types

The loop line through Kingston is the Kingston loop line, not the Kingston Loop line or Kingston Loop Line.

Other types of lines except "lines" and "main lines" include "branch lines" and "loop lines". These should be lowercase because the 'loop' or 'branch' is a property of the line, not of the descriptor. For example:

Even if there were consensus that the line is a proper noun and should be capitalised (see Exceptions), the names Catford Loop line or Greenford Branch line are still impossible, because if the name were in sentence case by convention it would be 'Catford loop line' and if it were in title case it would be 'Catford Loop Line'.

Exceptions

The St Ives Bay Line is capitalised in almost every single reliable source, so should not be given the name St Ives Bay line.

Wikipedia article titles are primarily based on their common name in reliable sources. If sources about an article almost entirely contradict the standard, the article should prefer the name in reliable sources. For example, the West Highland Line is almost never called the West Highland line, so the former name should be used. Where sources are mixed and there is no clear consensus, the standard should be used to promote cross-article consistency (for example Hope Valley line rather than Hope Valley Line).

Note that the use of sources to override the guidelines should only be used to make a line name entirely title case. For example, the line running along the coast of Cumbria can either be the Cumbrian coast line (following these conventions) or the Cumbrian Coast Line (because a large majority of sources say it is called that). What is cannot be is the Cumbrian Coast line, because Cumbrian Coast is not the name of a place and therefore cannot be a proper noun; "Cumbrian coast" is simply a description of the coastline of Cumbria but not a proper noun.

Either the line is a proper noun or it isn't. The name of a line cannot also decide the name of the places it serves (for example calling the 'Hope Valley' the 'Hope valley' in order to call the 'Hope Valley line' the 'Hope valley line').

List of exceptions

  • West Highland Line
  • North Downs Line

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